Author's note: I cannot stress often enough how much I love reading all those nice reviews I get. They really encourage me to type faster. It's touching to see how concerned you are about Raoul's mental well-being. I promise his reasons will become clear in this chapter. Oh, and the next chapter could take one or two days longer than usual. I'll be having concerts all weekend. But I won't let you wait too long.

Chapter Sixty-Two

September 14th 1892: Raoul

This time no sense of satisfaction was involved in watching Christine gasp in shock. I forced myself not to feel anything as she staggered to the armchair she had vacated just a few minutes ago and sank down on the soft plush, clutching the armrests as if they were the only things that kept her from falling. Her gaze was darting over my face, probably searching for anything that would make her understand me. ´Well,´ I thought with a cynicism completely unfamiliar to me. ´At least she knows now what that feels like.´

For a little while I waited for her to start asking about my reasons, but she seemed to be too confused to utter questions. So I had to do it myself.

"You're wondering why I want you to do that, aren't you?" I said matter-of-factly.

She nodded weakly.

"It's the only solution I could think of," I replied. "You feel attracted to that man, and the feeling is mutual. If it hadn't been for me, you'd have made love a long time ago."

Christine still seemed too stunned to speak. As her silence was slowly starting to get on my nerves, I poured her a little wine, removed one of her hands from the armrest and thrust the glass into it. Maybe alcohol would loosen her tongue a bit. It had the desired effect. After a minute or two and a few sips of wine she cleared her throat.

"That may be true," she admitted. "But it's… irrelevant. If you had married Meg instead of me, you'd have surely made love to her by now as well."

If circumstances had been different, I might have fallen for her attempt to distract me. Yet today I would have none of that. I wouldn't allow her to lead the conversation away from the topic I had chosen. For once, I'd stay in complete control of the situation.

"That comparison is ridiculous," I said coldly. "Your friend Meg and I never felt anything for each other, whereas everyone at the opera who's old enough can tell dozens of stories about the Phantom's love for you and the way you returned his feelings."

"But I chose you!" she called. I couldn't help noticing that she no longer denied the existence of her love for him. At least that was a step into the right direction. "I chose you twice. The last time only happened a few days ago. You can't have already forgotten that…"

She glanced at me, the silent plea to remember clear in her eyes. I looked away, pretending to check whether there was still wine in my glass. Too often I had grown weak at the sight of her beautiful eyes.

I shook my head.

"I'm no longer sure it was really me you chose," I told her. "Wasn't it security you wanted? Wasn't it fear that made you pick the young aristocrat instead of the murderer? And I'm not talking about your fear of poverty," I added, lifting my hand in a pacifying gesture as she opened her mouth to contradict. I wouldn't make it that easy for her to find arguments against me. "I know it was never money you were after. You wanted a normal life, without the constant fear of being caught by the authorities."

She merely looked at me, the expression on her face urging me on to continue. Apparently she was determined not to say anything before I had spread out of whole argumentation for her to see. Well, that was fine with me.

"I'm even more certain about the second time," I went on. "Only very recently I realised how stupid it was to ask you to make a decision at that point. You'd have never decided against your marriage and your children. Of course this makes your decision entirely meaningless."

I gave her a tired smile, thinking about how important all that had been to me just a few days ago.

"It's good to know how much you care about my opinion," she muttered bitterly.

"I don't doubt that in this situation you thought you were doing the right thing," I said calmly. "All I want you to see is how heavily influenced by the circumstances it was."

"Every decision is influenced by the circumstances," she stressed. There was a certain sparkle in her eyes that hadn't been there before. Now she seemed determined to fight. "Would you have liked it better if I had made a decision without thinking about the consequences?"

I nodded.

"I wanted the decision to be about him, me and you. And it is exactly such a decision that I'll get now. Actually it was you who gave me the idea in the first place."

"Me?" she repeated incredulously. "But… but I never mentioned anything about making love to – "

"You said that when you kiss him, you stop thinking about your surroundings," I interrupted her. "And that's what I want."

"But for what reason?" she asked, looking even more confused than before.

"I want to know what you feel for him – without you considering what this could mean for the children or for the two of us." For a fleeting moment I let my guard down and covered her hand with mine. "You know, I'm afraid that we could have married too soon," I told her with a little more warmth in my voice. "Maybe you only enjoy kissing the Phantom so much because you're curious what it would be like with another man. Well, I give you the chance to find out. And if it's not just curiosity…" I had to clear my throat before I could go on: "…then I can at least be sure.".

"Raoul… you're my husband," Christine whispered. "When I stood in front of the priest with you, I knew it meant I'd never… do such things with another man, and I agreed to that condition. If I made love to Erik now, wouldn't it be like breaking my vow?"

"Not in my eyes," I replied. "There's no need to drag moral into this discussion. No one except the Phantom and us will ever know what happened. So you don't have to worry." I was aware that this sentence was the most stupid I had uttered so far.

"But Raoul… what would it mean for us?" she asked.

"I have no idea," I answered gravely. "But I cannot go on like this, pretending not to notice the way you look at him, spending all the time you're not at home imagining what you might be doing with him. That's not a life I want to lead."

"But Raoul…" she repeated in an urgent whisper. "What if I do make love to him and come back afterwards? What would you think of me then?"

Hastily I stood up and walked to the other end of the room. It was so large that Christine would only be able to see the outline of my body and nothing more in the light of the candelabras. Of course that was exactly my intention. I didn't want her to see how her question affected me. I had sworn not to show any trace of emotion. Otherwise I wouldn't stand all this.

"That is none of your concern," I replied.

"And there is no… other solution?" she asked in a small voice. Hadn't she understood that by now? Yet at least she didn't come over to me. She seemed to have noticed the wall I had built around myself. "Couldn't I simply tell you how much I love you?"

"I'm afraid we're past the stage in which words can have a big effect," I said with a shrug. "And now go to him."

"Tonight?" she muttered weakly. "You want me to do it tonight?"

"Why not?" I wanted to know coldly. "It's not even midnight. I'm sure Gabriel is still in the stable. He'll take you to the opera, and you can be back in the morning. If you're not back by… let's say, nine o'clock, I'll know you've discovered that your feelings for him are more than curiosity." I was talking quickly, enumerating all those things in a flat voice, forbidding myself to think about my words.

Now she did take a few steps in my direction, but stopped as I turned around, facing the window.

"I don't want to go…" she muttered.

"You promised to do whatever I asked you to," I reminded her.

"And you guaranteed you wouldn't send me away," she argued.

"I don't send you away," I said in barely more than a whisper. "Sometimes I feel as if your heart had walked out of this door a long time ago."

Silence fell, as heavy as thick fog, suffocating us. At last Christine spoke.

"If you really want me to, I'll go," she whispered. "But I don't know whether I'll make love to him. That's nothing I can promise. What I do promise is that I'll be back by nine. You can take my word for it." After a few moments the faint sound of the door snapping shut told me that she had gone.

It was as if that had been a signal for me. All the time I had managed to pull myself together, to envelop me with a layer of indifference. But now I couldn't go on. My heart felt as if it was being squeezed together by a vice, and my mind was flooded with pictures of my wife and the Phantom, happily united. In an attempt to free myself from those images I slammed my head against the windowpane.

The resulting pain and dizziness were just what I needed. I slumped into a heap on the floor, my hands covering my face. All the cruel words I had said rose in my throat like bile, and finally, finally I allowed myself to cry. Maybe I had done the right thing. Maybe Christine would return in the morning as if nothing had happened and stay with me. But that tiny little shred of hope didn't make me feel better. Not at all.